


The Bitter, Saddest Part

by andstarswillscream



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, One-Sided Attraction, Other, Past Abuse, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-01 22:46:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10202501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andstarswillscream/pseuds/andstarswillscream
Summary: Starscream deals with some trauma. Bumblebee lends a hand.





	

“So why did you stay?”

Starscream hissed, wings and plating flaring at the question. He didn’t turn, knowing his face would betray more than his wings would. He clenched his fists, wings slowly returning to their resting position, and then dropping lower, tips nearly touching. 

“Do you think I had a **choice**?”

Bumblebee stepped closer. The phantom, hollow sound echoed through Starscream’s chambers, through his head. “Isn’t that what the Decepticon movement was all about? Choosing? I remember the speeches, Starscream. We both do.”

Starscream’s shoulder joints stiffened. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what **do** you mean? I want to know.”

“Oh, you want to know, do you?” Starscream’s voice crackled violent static as he turned to face Bumblebee, optics wide and chest heaving.

“Starscream.” Bumblebee seemed to draw back, looking elsewhere, anywhere, before gaining his courage. “This isn’t you. None of this is you.”

“It is **now**.”

The room fell into an uncomfortable silence. Bumblebee drew closer, reaching for him. Starscream hissed, loud screeching feedback. “Don’t touch me.”

“Then talk to me. The only person you seem to trust is yourself. I’m an extension of your mind, aren’t I?”

Starscream didn’t answer.

“I feel like this is something you need to talk about.” Bumblebee’s voice was grating on his audials, ringing horrifically like the bells of—

Nevermind.

The seeker narrowed his eyes at the mech in front of him, offlining them for a moment, bringing a hand to his face, wishing he could get rid of the feeling of those blue optics on him. He wasn’t here, and yet, the sensation of Bumblebee’s unsettling, curious gaze lingered.

“Where else could I have gone? The Autobots? They carried the symbol of our oppressors. Many of them, of you, **were** , our oppressors.”

“You could have deserted.” The little yellow mech sat himself on the desk in the room, staring intently at the seeker before him.

“And have the Deception Justice Division tail me for the rest of my life? Never truly know peace?”

“You won’t know peace if you keep holding on to this.”

“Do you think I **enjoy** this? Do you think I **want** to be like this?”

Bumblebee didn’t respond.

“Do you think I **asked** for this?” Starscream had begun to pace again, looking away from Bumblebee and walking worried lines in the floor as he spoke, his frame beginning to shake. “I lost everything, Bumblebee. I had nothing. I had no home, no trine, no crown, no authority. I was a pawn beneath him, a pawn that he took pleasure in tearing apart. I was not a person to him, at the end.”

“After my trine left, after I abandoned them, after he realized I had nothing left, he took something from me that I never…” He paused, clutching at the desk to keep himself stable. “He had so many power trips, I suppose it’s no longer apt to call them more than one. Around me, **to me** , it was continuous.”

"I went too far, I suppose, in questioning his tactics. He overpowered me quickly, as he always had." Starscream could feel his anxiety rising, panic surging through his systems, fear making his energon run cold as he relived it, over and over. 

Megatron pinning his small frame to the floor, those wicked hands on his wings, the sickening screech of metal being torn, of energon lines being stretched to their limits, and his sensornet flashing in dozens, hundreds of warnings, his HUD telling him his wings had been compromised, that his systems may fail.

Megatron had kicked Starscream out from under him, and he felt something crack, once, twice. It hadn't been long before he went into shock that his leader's arms had been around him, picking him up from the floor. Uttering the first apology he'd heard in four million years. Cradling him close as he called for the best medics on board. Waking up on a medical berth and knowing, before ever being told, that he would never fly the same again, that balance would always be an issue.

Remembering, knowing, somehow he'd deserved this. In some horrible way, he'd deserved it.

“He tore my wings away. He damaged sensors in their ports that cannot be simply replaced. I had to relearn to fly, in wings that were not mine, with an inability to properly balance myself.”

He crossed his arms, turning to face Bumblebee again. “It had been leading up to that, I suppose. He’d shattered my cockpit a week before.”

“And you still didn’t leave?”

“I had no choice. I had nowhere to go. My trinemates had left, with no indication of ever wanting to see me again. I don’t exactly have friends, Bumblebee. They were my lifeline. I had nothing. He had nothing. I became a shell of my former self after that. I became disenchanted with the Cause. I finally left, months later. I came home. I tasted life without him.”

“And then there was Metalhawk.”

“…Yes.”

“You loved him.” Bumblebee replied, expression soft.

“I did.”

“So why did you kill him?”

“I wanted to succeed, to have **something** to my name. Just once, I could feel it in my grasp. I wanted it more than I wanted to deal with how I felt. I couldn’t let myself get attached to another leader who happened to say all the right things.”

“Even if he saw the best in you?”

Starscream fell silent. Bumblebee scooted closer, patting the place next to him on the desk where he sat. The seeker sighed, sitting next to him, expression more weary than Bumblebee had come to expect from him. Starscream was worn down, raw and harsh and bare.

And for once, he was not alone. Not totally. Bumblebee laid his hand over Starscream’s, softly. Carefully, he spoke. 

“What happened wasn’t your fault.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“I’m not. Starscream, this— all of this— isn’t something someone just **deserves**.” Bumblebee slid his shorter, wider fingers between Starscream’s, adding gentle pressure. “You aren’t responsible for the actions someone does to hurt you.”

“If you think pitying me will make this any better, it won’t.” Starscream simply let the contact happen, watching their hands intently, seeing how they just _nearly_ fit together.

“This isn’t pity.” Bumblebee squeezed Starscream’s hand. Starscream could see right through the hand on top of his, but the contact, and the significance, felt entirely real.

“Then what is it?” Starscream asked, voice filled with a tired bemusement.

“Compassion. It’s something you haven’t been shown in a long time. Too long.”

“Metalhawk—“

Bumblebee cut him off. “Compassion isn’t something that’s shown once and gone forever, Starscream. To survive, to **live** , we need to show it to one another, all the time. It’s supposed to be a constant. We can’t thrive alone. No one can. Not even you.”

The seeker’s spark clenched painfully, and he looked away from Bumblebee, as something smothering and awful filled his systems and made it hard to cycle air. The response he’d been formulating his his mind died on his lips as Bumblebee continued.

“I know you find it hard to rely on others, so rely on me. I’m here. I’m always here. You’re the only person who can see me. You’re the only one who can hear me. No one else.”

Starscream’s shoulders shook again, his wings trembling like leaves. The hand not occupied by Bumblebee’s covered his mouth as a broken sob came out instead of words.

“You didn’t deserve what happened to you. Do you understand? None of what he did to you was your fault. I’ll say it as much as I need to, Starscream.”

The seeker felt an overwhelming urge to run, to leave, to get away from this ghost that haunted him, from the memories that plagued him, from the loneliness that encased his spark in a layer of ice and barbs. But he remained, with Bumblebee’s hand gently squeezing his own rhythmically, as he trembled and forced back coolant when his eyes threatened to leak.

Eventually, slowly, he leaned against the yellow mech, the contact grounding him, even if it was entirely imaginary.


End file.
